Just as I think that he must surely see me, Stephen asks himself, “What’s that?” He breaks into a run. His footsteps, which were so close, now move farther away.
Even though he seems to have left, I can’t risk moving too soon and giving myself away.
My dad’s death was fast, but my mother must have been so frightened before she died. Had she tried to appeal to Stephen, to their long friendship? Had her disbelief at what was happening slowed her reaction? What had it been like to look into the face of someone she thought of as a friend as he stabbed her again and again? Had she thought of my father or me? Or had it all been beyond thought, a crazy struggle that lasted only a few seconds?
Tears come to my eyes as I think of her and my dad and Nora, all of them taken from me.
No! I’m not going to let it happen again. Moving as quietly as I can, I twist and strain until I can pull out my phone. When I turn it on, I see one bar. It wavers but then holds. Relief washes over me. Now to call 911 for help.
I push the 9 button, then stop. First of all, I’m going to have to risk talking. How close is Stephen? Will he hear my voice and turn back? Will he shoot me before I can finish explaining to the dispatcher what’s going on?
And even if I manage to tell my story, what will the dispatcher think when I claim that the chief of police is trying to kill me? The first thing they’ll probably do is check with Stephen. He’ll make up a lie. It might not hold in the long run—especially once I turn up missing—but either way, I’ll still be dead.
I delete the 9, put my phone on silent, and switch to my text program. Duncan’s my only hope.
Nd help. Spaulding killed parents!! Took me 2 same place. Hiding from him in woods.
What? Srsly? Call police.
No! He IS police. Plz come b4 he finds me. I’ll try 2 get back 2 road.
His answer comes only a second later.
Coming 4 u.
My sense of relief doesn’t last long. It will still take twenty minutes for Duncan to drive here. And even before that, he’s going to have to get his hands on a car. Should I stay where I am for a while longer? Try to head back to the road now? I’m just starting to think it might be time to risk leaving when a white flake floats through the blackberry canes and past my eyes. And then another one. The flakes look like snow. Which is impossible.
It’s ash.
I sniff. The air smells sweet and smoky. And the forest is tinder-dry.
Pausing every few seconds to listen, I carefully back my way out of the blackberry bush. It’s even more difficult than tunneling in. All the canes I pressed one way now have to be pushed the other. Without a flat-out panic numbing me to the pain, each new scratch makes me flinch, which just makes another thorn snag on a different part of my body. As the canes finally grow sparser, I cautiously peer out. My heart is thudding in my chest. I’m so afraid I’ll find Stephen waiting patiently for me, but there’s no sign of him.
But about the length of a football field away, a thin plume of gray smoke is rising to the sky. Even while I watch, it grows fatter. Underneath the gray, there’s the orange flicker of flames. A half dozen trees are on fire. Another line of smoke rises from a new tree. Flames the color of molten gold race up another. And now I can hear it. A crackle that thickens to a roar.
The fire is between me and the road. And it’s getting bigger every second.
I don’t think this fire is an accident. Stephen has set the forest alight, hoping to drive me out or burn me down. When I was here fourteen years ago, I could have frozen to death. Now I might turn to ashes.
Maybe I can circle around it and get back to the road. Get to Duncan. I imagine jumping into his mom’s car and getting out of here.
Even in the few seconds it takes to imagine this, the forest fire is stretching out, hungry flames finding new fuel, thanks to wind-carried embers. Moving like a living thing, the fire skitters here, takes great leaps there. It flows like liquid, flames swirling and twining.
It’s mesmerizing. I shake my head and start to run from the flames. Maybe I can outrace them. The air is so hot it singes the insides of my nostrils. The white ash is falling faster and faster. After a few minutes, I risk a glance behind me. It’s much worse than I thought. The flames have jumped from tree to tree, so that the fire is beginning to ring me like an open mouth. It’s so close now, only a few hundred feet away, and gaining on me every second with a sound like thunder.
With my head twisted around, I can’t watch my feet, so when my right toe hooks on something, I fall hard, landing with my cuffed hands in my solar plexus. The air is knocked out of me. I lie there, mouth open like a fish’s, my lungs empty and my diaphragm stuck.
Get up, a woman’s voice says. I don’t know if it’s in my head or in my ear. You have to get up, honey.
Now, a man’s voice commands.
Suddenly, the scorching, smoky air rushes back into my lungs, hot and harsh. Gasping, I roll over, push myself to my feet, and start running again. Trees pop and snap as the flames find pockets of moisture. All around me, bits of fire flicker through the air. Each is a burning leaf that blackens to a crisp in midair. Then one of them, still burning, lands a few feet ahead of me and ignites a new fire. I swerve around it. But the fire at my back is giving birth to more and more spot fires that flare up and join the mother conflagration. I’m no longer thinking of finding Duncan or avoiding Stephen. I’m not even sure what direction I’m running in. Now all I want to do is survive for a few more seconds.
I crash through dense underbrush, veering around clumps of brambles, threading between tree trunks, my eyes constantly evaluating where I can go, where I can step. The air is as hot as a kiln. My tongue feels fat and swollen against my dry lips. Pine needles and small branches begin to swirl around me as they’re pulled off the ground and sucked into the firestorm at my back. When I wipe my stinging eyes, my palm comes away smeared with ash.
Something crashes past me. Two somethings. My heart stutters in my chest. Deer. A doe and a fawn, leaping so fast they barely touch the ground before they bound off again. They live here and I don’t, so I follow them as flames lick the trees and orange-and-gray clouds billow to the sky.
The fire’s orange-yellow glow casts my shadow ahead of me. Behind me, a tree explodes as a pocket of hidden moisture turns to steam. Splinters shoot past me. A flaming branch falls at my feet, and I leap over it like one of the deer, ignoring the sharp pain in my ankle when I land.
Through the acrid smoke, I can still dimly see them ahead of me. The deer are cutting down into what looks like a small ravine.
I risk another look behind me. A wind-fed wall of flames twenty feet tall is racing toward me, roaring like a freight train.
There is nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. The fire is coming.
And soon it will catch me.